Google, we want the iPad’s Gmail web app on our old-school computers!

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

The new Gmail web app for tablets mimics a two-pane interface of the iPad’s native Mail app. Simply put, it’s a remarkable display of what can be done with the power of web and HTML5.

Just like with its iPhone, Apple has taken a great deal of device-specific capabilities into consideration when creating an iPad version of the Mail app. The resulting experience is simply stunning. Working in portrait puts your messages into a scrollable leftmost column, with the remaining screen area devoted to the message preview.

This lets you quickly check out any message by tapping. Turn the iPad upside down and you get a fullscreen view of the message at hand. There’s no denying that Mail on iPad is snazzy, clean, and fast. Although Mail works with your Gmail account using IMAP, you can also use a new Gmail web app designed specifically for upcoming tablets like the iPad.

Building on the previous Gmail for mobile based on the latest HTML5 specification, the new web app is accessed by visiting gmail.com from Safari on your iPad. It features the same two-pane interface like the Mail app, allowing you to quickly preview your Gmail inbox by tapping individual messages.

According to a Gmail engineering manager Alex Nicolaou, the new HTML5 Gmail web app packs in all the features of its predecessor, including caching that reduces latency and offline access. If you haven’t yet tried it, I urge you to do so because the new HTML5 Gmail web app rocks.

Give it a year or two, and web-based software running on mobile devices connected to fourth-generation networks will replace the vast majority of today’s native apps ranging from Twitter apps and Facebook clients to entertainment and productivity programs.

No installs and storage waste, you’re always running the latest version, and being able to get most apps for free – what else could you ask for? Indeed, the web could become the ultimate app store. Which brings me to my point: Google, can we have the Gmail mobile web app on our computers? Pretty please?